Lynette Hooker was concerned about husband Brian in messages to friend: “I can’t be out there with him”
Messages that Lynette Hooker sent to a friend in 2024 following her temporary separation from her husband Brian Hooker indicate that she was worried about him and their life at sea.
The couple was sailing in the Bahamas earlier this month when she disappeared during a night boat ride. Brian Hooker was arrested and questioned by the police but later released.
The posts from January to February 2024 provide insight into the couple’s relationship.
“I guess it was too close. We decided to call it quits. I’m not going back,” Lynette Hooker wrote in messages obtained exclusively by CBS News.
She told fellow boater and friend Marnee Stevenson: “We were married for 21 years. Our marriage was 6 weeks of cruising.”
Marnee and Blaine Stevenson met the Hookers in 2023 while they were sailing through Florida.
“We sailed with them for a while,” Blaine Stevenson said.
Lynette Hooker, who previously lived in Michigan, told Marnee that she “gave up my amazing career, sold my house and gave everything I owned to go on a cruise.”
At the time, she had left Brian to stay with her mother in Florida, according to the messages.
When asked if the two could reconcile, Hooker told her friend, “It was really bad. I can’t be with him.”
A month later, in late February 2024, the messages indicated that Lynette and Brian had reconciled.
Marnee Stevenson sent him a message on social media: “Looks like things are getting better and better.”
Lynette responded with heart emojis and a thumbs-up.
Brian Hooker reported his wife missing on Sunday, April 5, saying she had been swept away by a boat that lost power the night before, leaving him unable to seek help.
Attorney Terrel Butler, who is representing Brian Hooker in a criminal investigation by the Royal Bahamas Police Force, has consistently said he denies any wrongdoing, is heartbroken by the incident and wants to be released so he can search for his wife.
